Random Memories #4

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I remember when I found my first "Burger King" fast food joint in Tokyo. While McDonald's were everywhere, the fast food which I was most likely to eat back home was very scarce. When I finally found one, it turned out that memory was better than modern experience. The food really was not what I remembered, or my tastes had changed enough that it was no longer tasty to me.

Burger King left Japan at one point, and then, it came back. Wendy's similarly was there and seemingly gone, and then back again. If I hadn't been in Japan for so long, I may have believed that these places never had branches there, or that they had had them there for a long time. We have a tendency to believe in extremes, always or never. A note to those visiting Japan, don't make assumptions or reach conclusions based on your limited viewpoint. 

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When I visited Tokyo in 1988, there was a branch of Mrs. Field's cookies there. It wasn't simply imported boxes of cookies, but one of the shops that served freshly made cookies from a storefront like those that can be seen in various areas in California. That was back when the cookies were really good. These days, they seem to be not nearly as tasty as I recall and I haven't had more than a tiny nibble of one in decades. 

I recall that the cookies were insanely expensive, very big, and extremely rich and sweet. Of course, that means that they didn't last in Tokyo. The Japanese aren't known for having an appetite for such sweets, so Mrs. Fields went the way of the dodo.